Democracy on the March in Afghanistan

[BKM]

Our new Democratic allies in Afghanistan are at work. Apparatnly, its a capital crime to renounce Islam, the "Religion of Peace." So, death to the apostate! Remember, every culture is equally valid. We cannot criiticize any religion at all (even that made up by a hack Space Opera Writer). Remember, cultural groups have the absolute right to enforce their beliefs through violence.

I particularly love this:

A few caricatures in a Danish newspaper caused bloody riots in the Muslim world. But now an Afghan man has been sentenced to death for converting to Christianity. Afghanistan has told the West it should mind its own business. Come again?

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...407493,00.html

Boy, our Democracy campaign has sure worked well. Remind me again why we've spent billions here? Especially as our unnecessary FUBAR debacle in Afghanistan diverted attention from really cleaning up the Taliban?

[el Guapo]

I'm with you on this on Rush! As long as the clerics run the justice system there they are screwed. In all reality I perfer the Godless justice system we have now to that of the Imams. Thanks Ruth Bader Ginsberg!

Oh, and lay off L. Ron because I really enjoyed Starship Troopers.

[BKM]

I'm with you on this on Rush! As long as the clerics run the justice system there they are screwed. In all reality I perfer the Godless justice system we have now to that of the Imams. Thanks Ruth Bader Ginsberg!

Oh, and lay off L. Ron because I really enjoyed Starship Troopers.

Starship Troopers was based on a Robert Heinlein novel of the same name, not any of the dreadful space opera trash written by that goofball L. Ron. Actually, you would pobably agree with Mr. Heinlein's basic politics, I'm guessing.

Seriously, though. It is interesting that SOME on the "left" are perfectly OK with Religious Tyranny as long as it's practiced by "The Other." It's just their culture, don't you know?

[The Irish One]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC28Df01.html

In parallel to Christianity, but in a different way, Islam made its own compromise with the nations it absorbed. It would defend the pure traditional society of tribal life against the encroachment of the empires that encircled them: first the Byzantines and Persians, then Christian Europe, and now America. Traditional life inevitably must break down in the face of globalization of trade and information, and the ummah closes ranks to delay the time when the descendants of today's Muslims will look with pity upon ancestral photographs, as they turn momentarily from their video game.

[BKM]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HC28Df01.html

Sorry, One. This article infuriated me, even if he meant this somewhat ironically. I don't buy the smug "you are dead" because one doesn't believe in a particular vision of Sky Fairy. Spain and Germany are far better places to live than the fervent Saudi Arabia living under their blessed murderous "sovereign." Bleh to all of it. He can pray for an angel to drag him back to the era of the 100 year war, with all the glory and faith and passion of those roving murderous bands of soildiers. Bleh to all of it.

[SkeLeton]

Remind me again why we've spent billions here?

The Caspian sea has Oil reserves... and Afganistan is in the way... (Because the Iran route is impossible since 1979)

Yes, today's international politics go down to that... if you have oil or are in the way of an oleoduct or have a neighbor with oil reserves you're in the hot spot. Oh well, it's going to be like that until oil gets so scarce that it'll be economically non viable as fuel. Then it'll probably be water.

[dobopoq]

The Caspian sea has Oil reserves... and Afganistan is in the way... (Because the Iran route is impossible since 1979)

Yes, today's international politics go down to that... if you have oil or are in the way of an oleoduct or have a neighbor with oil reserves you're in the hot spot. Oh well, it's going to be like that until oil gets so scarce that it'll be economically non viable as fuel. Then it'll probably be water.

Tell it like it is SkeL!

Another reason were in Afghanistan is - if you believe the information in Mike Ruppert's "Crossing The Rubicon", is that the Taliban had shut down opium field production in the early 2000's. Ruppert says Wall Street interests wanted to get rid of the Taliban so that opium production could be restarted because the cessation of opium production was dragging down the market. He says drug money is a huge part of what keeps Wall Street afloat. That's a whopper of an allegation, and I'm afraid I believe there's more than a kernel of truth to it.

[jaws]

Sorry, One. This article infuriated me, even if he meant this somewhat ironically. I don't buy the smug "you are dead" because one doesn't believe in a particular vision of Sky Fairy. Spain and Germany are far better places to live than the fervent Saudi Arabia living under their blessed murderous "sovereign." Bleh to all of it. He can pray for an angel to drag him back to the era of the 100 year war, with all the glory and faith and passion of those roving murderous bands of soildiers. Bleh to all of it.

I don't think that's his point. Spain and Germany are dying because the people there have stopped believing in a future. You of course will die, whether or not you are a catholic or an evengelical or a godless heathen. For a whole nation to die there must be a renunciation of parenthood, of the desire to have children. No matter how nice Spain and Germany are, eventually the current Spaniards and Germans will die out, and if there aren't little Spaniards and Germans to continue the culture then the Spanish and German nations will die as well. Such is life.

[BKM]

I don't think that's his point. Spain and Germany are dying because the people there have stopped believing in a future. You of course will die, whether or not you are a catholic or an evengelical or a godless heathen. For a whole nation to die there must be a renunciation of parenthood, of the desire to have children. No matter how nice Spain and Germany are, eventually the current Spaniards and Germans will die out, and if there aren't little Spaniards and Germans to continue the culture then the Spanish and German nations will die as well. Such is life.

Ah. Interesting. I just read this as another sneering "look how superior the fervent believers are to you agnostics" tirade. Interesting argument, of course.

[Coragus]

The Caspian sea has Oil reserves... and Afganistan is in the way... (Because the Iran route is impossible since 1979)

This was the common belief before the Afghan invasion. However, to quote Kunstler's new book:

"But two developments killed that idea once we became familiar with the terrain and its inhabitants: first, the dawning recognition of our absolute inability to defend such a pipeline against casual sabotage, and second, the fact that the oil reserves in the former Soviet republics proved to be both much lower in quantity than originally estimated, as well as lower in quality, being a high-sulfur "sour" crude that it is much more difficult and expensive to refine than the "sweet" crudes of Arabia and elsewhere."

I just bought this book (The Long Emergency) and I had been wondering where the pipline was. Now I know. It isn't coming.

[BKM]

This was the common belief before the Afghan invasion. However, to quote Kunstler's new book:

"But two developments killed that idea once we became familiar with the terrain and its inhabitants: first, the dawning recognition of our absolute inability to defend such a pipeline against casual sabotage, and second, the fact that the oil reserves in the former Soviet republics proved to be both much lower in quantity than originally estimated, as well as lower in quality, being a high-sulfur "sour" crude that it is much more difficult and expensive to refine than the "sweet" crudes of Arabia and elsewhere."

I just bought this book (The Long Emergency) and I had been wondering where the pipline was. Now I know. It isn't coming.

Kunstler's internal contradictions are amazing (personal failings aside of jetting across the world while complaining about soccer moms' SUVs ). He's on the one hand a fervent supporter of the Iraq War while on the other he has been spouting that it is "impossible" for the United States to secure the oil pipelines. I don't find him very interesting anymore.